Before I begin, I just want to comment on a phenomenon that I find very odd indeed. Nearly all my posts have page view counts in single or double digits, and by double digits I mean like 30 max. My page on Tim Winton's The Turning, on the other hand, has scored 300+ page views, plus a +1! And, yes, I made sure that my settings don't count my own page views.
The most bizarre thing is, The Turning is the one book that I know that I'm definitely not going to write about in my final exam because it just didn't click with me. Not only was it my worst (as in, received the lowest mark) in-class essay all year but I had trouble finishing it. I quite liked reading Winton's children's books as a kid, but I'm not really one for the somewhat dark realistic fiction that The Turning offers, plus over the past couple of years I've been finding it somewhat difficult to get my mind to settle and concentrate on reading, particularly when it's about bad things happening to good people.
Maybe all of those page views and the +1 were actually from other students who share the same views as I do and just want a quick study guide...?
Anyway, back to Vaughan-Williams. Vaughan-Williams was heavily influenced by English folk songs, Tudor music and the poetry of Walt Whitman. He was very "English" and his music often reflected his nostalgia for the English countryside. He was born in Gloucestershire in 1872 and later studied music at Cambridge University and at the Royal College of Music in London. He began his career as a church organist, but in 1905 he also became the director of the amateur Leith Hill Music Festival and the next year became the editor of The English Hymnal, which he wrote some hymn tunes for. Between 1919 and 1939, he was also the professor of composition at the Royal College of Music. In 1935 he was awarded the Order of Merit for services to music and in 1939 his music was banned in Germany for apparently being "anti-Nazi propaganda." Like most other patriotic Brits of the time, Vaughan-Williams did join the army for WWI, working as part of the field ambulance services in the Royal Army Medical Corps. The exposure to gunfire damaged his hearing, causing him to become deaf later on in his life.
As I said before, Vaughan-Williams was heavily influenced by folk songs and all other things purely English. In fact, he also went around collecting them (just like Bartók and Kodály in Hungary). He arranged these folk songs and often incorporated them into his own compositions. He also took a lot of inspiration from English literature and from older English composers, writing a Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis and a Fantasia on Greensleeves. In the Fen Country was a more original composition by Vaughan-Williams that was based on the style of English folk music. Of course, with such a large compositional output, not all of it was based on English stuff- some of his works were also inspired by composers from other countries like Bach, Handel, Debussy and Ravel. In fact, he studied orchestration under Ravel.
The work that I'm going to focus on this time is Ralph Vaughan-Williams' Songs of Travel song-cycle, based off poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson, who was Scottish, not English. Ha. Anyway, it's composed for piano and baritone, and was originally published in two volumes. The accompaniment was later orchestrated by Vaughan-Williams himself, but I'm going to concentrate on the piano versions for now. Vaughan-Williams' piano accompaniments are usually simpler than those written by his contemporaries, but that's fine by me as it means that I can actually somewhat play the piano accompaniment to The Vagabond. Anyway, simplicity certainly doesn't mean ineffective in this case.
The entire song cycle is about a young man as he experiences all kinds of different trials and tribulations and lives and grows during his journey throughout life. These are themes that are also found in song-cycles by Schubert and Mahler, specifically Winterreise and Die Schoene Mulleren by Schubert and Lieder Eines Fahrenden Coselli by Mahler. The first eight songs were first performed in London in 1904 but there was one other song that was left unpublished at the time. It was later discovered by Vaughan-Williams' wife after his death, and was published in 1960. (That sounds like a long gap, but Vaughan-Williams died in 1958. Why Vaughan-Williams didn't finish the song between 1904 and his death is beyond me. Maybe he only thought to write it towards the end of his life, or maybe he ran out of inspiration.)
Most of the songs have little musical references to each other. For example, Youth and Love has a few references to the first part of the melody of The Vagabond in its piano part. There are also some instances of word painting (using the music to reflect the meaning of the words). For example, the second syllable of "below" in The Vagabond is sung on a relatively low note, a downward leap of a minor 7th from the note before it. Youth and Love has the words "and far on the level land" all on the same note, as well as a high, loud note for the word "cries" and a pianissimo low note that decrescendos for the word "gone."
Apart from that I don't really have much more analysis on this work. I think we're going to learn more about it in class this Thursday (wait... that's tomorrow), though, so maybe I can update this part then as well as flesh out (and re-organise) the stuff on Vaughan-Williams' life and compositional output. Until then, happy listening (and performing)!
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
20th Century Onwards- English Composers of the 20th Century
Previously I talked about some French composers, such as Debussy. Now it's time to cross the Channel and talk about some English composers, such as Elgar, Holst and Vaughan-Williams (or "V-dubs" as our music class affectionately calls him).
After England's long-standing reputation for being "the land without music" for many years after the death of Purcell (a Baroque-era composer), it was up to the current generation of English composers including Vaughan-Williams, Holst, Elgar and Tippett to create new music that was truly British. And just as the French composers liked asserting their "Frenchness," these English composers liked asserting their "Englishness," with their compositions rife with nostalgia for the English countryside and laced with influences from and references to folk music and music written by older composers such as Purcell and Parry. A lot of these up-and-coming British composers were also involved in the war in some way or another (well, it was a World War, so pretty much everyone got involved in some way regardless or whether they were actually fighting or not) and this often had an impact on their compositions.
Let's have a bit of a closer look at these British composers: who they were, what they wrote, and what inspired them. First up is Edward Elgar, who had a lower middle class background, had no formal education and was not always received well, but this didn't stop him from playing violin and teaching music (though he didn't enjoy the latter job). During WWI, he was a special constable and later joined the Hampstead Volunteer Reserve. He wrote many well-known compositions such as the Enigma variations, the Cello Concerto and his Pomp and Circumstance Marches. Elgar's patriotism is evident in some of his works, particularly the latter marches, the first of which became Land of Hope and Glory. He also wrote some choral music, such as The Dream of Gerontius, an oratorio that was sometimes not received well because it was too serious and heavy or, as one Irish Protestant put it, "stinks of incense." Overall, though, he was successful enough to land him honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge and Yale and receive a knighthood. Yes, I would say he was pretty successful.
Next up on my list is Frederick Delius, who was born in England but lived in France for 45 years where he befriended the artists Gaugin and Munch. Kinda like how Handel was German but lived in England for a while. Delius also studied in Leipzig in 1886, where he befriended Grieg. (You'll find that a lot of these musicians and artists tend to know each other.) His musical style included a bit of everything, incorporating elements of French Impressionism, German post-Romanticism and the English pastoral feel into his works. In fact, Delius was sometimes considered a "water-colourist of music" due to his use of French Impressionist elements. He also wrote a variety of orchestral and choral works, including a non-religious mass called the Mass of Life and a secular requiem commemorating the WWI war dead. He died in 1934 while blind and paralysed by syphilis. In fact, this was the same year that Elgar died. And Holst. Hmm.Now go home and make a conspiracy theory out of that. I challenge you.
Gustav Holst was originally called Gustav von Holst but he dropped the "von" during WWI in order to sound less German. He was a trombonist, music teacher and director of schools in London, as well as a friend of Vaughan-Williams who, like Vaughan-Williams, was strongly influenced by English folk song. His most famous work is The Planets suite: the theme of Jupiter became the patriotic hymn I Vow to Thee My Country, while Mars, the Bringer of War served to portray the horrors of WWI, during which Holst had volunteered for the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in France. The Planets suite also influenced the musical scores of many film scores such as the scores of Star Wars and Harry Potter. As mentioned before, Holst died in 1934 after surgery for haemorrhagic gastritis (wow big words)- the same year that Elgar and Delius died.
Michael Tippett was a bit of a pacifist and was jailed for three months for refusing to fight in WWI. This didn't stop him from writing lots of English operas, cantatas and concertos, though. He also wrote an oratorio in three parts called A Child of Our Time about an incident involving a young Polish Jew who shot a diplomat.
Benjamin Britten was another very well-known English composer, though he wasn't just a composer: he also was a conductor and pianist, just like Rachmaninov. He was initially taught music by his mother before studying composition under Frank Bridge and attending the Royal College of Music. He wrote a wide variety of works: choral music, orchestral music, operas and songs. Many of his songs were for tenor voice because he was writing for his partner (yes, Britten was homosexual). Like Tippett, Britten was also a pacifist, and he was criticised for avoiding the call-up for WWII. (It also says in my notes here that he went to America between 1939 and 1942, so I'm guessing that that's how he avoided the call-up.) Back in England, Britten and his partner toured giving recitals, even performing for concentration camp survivors. The latter experience affected Britten for the rest of his life, but he never spoke about it until towards the end of his life. Britten wrote many well-loved works, such as the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and the War Requiem. Britten was awarded the Order of Merit in 1965, had heart surgery in 1973 and died three years later.
Next up is Vaughan-Williams, but I might talk about him in a different post, since this post seems to have dragged on for long enough. TTFN!
After England's long-standing reputation for being "the land without music" for many years after the death of Purcell (a Baroque-era composer), it was up to the current generation of English composers including Vaughan-Williams, Holst, Elgar and Tippett to create new music that was truly British. And just as the French composers liked asserting their "Frenchness," these English composers liked asserting their "Englishness," with their compositions rife with nostalgia for the English countryside and laced with influences from and references to folk music and music written by older composers such as Purcell and Parry. A lot of these up-and-coming British composers were also involved in the war in some way or another (well, it was a World War, so pretty much everyone got involved in some way regardless or whether they were actually fighting or not) and this often had an impact on their compositions.
Let's have a bit of a closer look at these British composers: who they were, what they wrote, and what inspired them. First up is Edward Elgar, who had a lower middle class background, had no formal education and was not always received well, but this didn't stop him from playing violin and teaching music (though he didn't enjoy the latter job). During WWI, he was a special constable and later joined the Hampstead Volunteer Reserve. He wrote many well-known compositions such as the Enigma variations, the Cello Concerto and his Pomp and Circumstance Marches. Elgar's patriotism is evident in some of his works, particularly the latter marches, the first of which became Land of Hope and Glory. He also wrote some choral music, such as The Dream of Gerontius, an oratorio that was sometimes not received well because it was too serious and heavy or, as one Irish Protestant put it, "stinks of incense." Overall, though, he was successful enough to land him honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge and Yale and receive a knighthood. Yes, I would say he was pretty successful.
Next up on my list is Frederick Delius, who was born in England but lived in France for 45 years where he befriended the artists Gaugin and Munch. Kinda like how Handel was German but lived in England for a while. Delius also studied in Leipzig in 1886, where he befriended Grieg. (You'll find that a lot of these musicians and artists tend to know each other.) His musical style included a bit of everything, incorporating elements of French Impressionism, German post-Romanticism and the English pastoral feel into his works. In fact, Delius was sometimes considered a "water-colourist of music" due to his use of French Impressionist elements. He also wrote a variety of orchestral and choral works, including a non-religious mass called the Mass of Life and a secular requiem commemorating the WWI war dead. He died in 1934 while blind and paralysed by syphilis. In fact, this was the same year that Elgar died. And Holst. Hmm.
Gustav Holst was originally called Gustav von Holst but he dropped the "von" during WWI in order to sound less German. He was a trombonist, music teacher and director of schools in London, as well as a friend of Vaughan-Williams who, like Vaughan-Williams, was strongly influenced by English folk song. His most famous work is The Planets suite: the theme of Jupiter became the patriotic hymn I Vow to Thee My Country, while Mars, the Bringer of War served to portray the horrors of WWI, during which Holst had volunteered for the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in France. The Planets suite also influenced the musical scores of many film scores such as the scores of Star Wars and Harry Potter. As mentioned before, Holst died in 1934 after surgery for haemorrhagic gastritis (wow big words)- the same year that Elgar and Delius died.
Michael Tippett was a bit of a pacifist and was jailed for three months for refusing to fight in WWI. This didn't stop him from writing lots of English operas, cantatas and concertos, though. He also wrote an oratorio in three parts called A Child of Our Time about an incident involving a young Polish Jew who shot a diplomat.
Benjamin Britten was another very well-known English composer, though he wasn't just a composer: he also was a conductor and pianist, just like Rachmaninov. He was initially taught music by his mother before studying composition under Frank Bridge and attending the Royal College of Music. He wrote a wide variety of works: choral music, orchestral music, operas and songs. Many of his songs were for tenor voice because he was writing for his partner (yes, Britten was homosexual). Like Tippett, Britten was also a pacifist, and he was criticised for avoiding the call-up for WWII. (It also says in my notes here that he went to America between 1939 and 1942, so I'm guessing that that's how he avoided the call-up.) Back in England, Britten and his partner toured giving recitals, even performing for concentration camp survivors. The latter experience affected Britten for the rest of his life, but he never spoke about it until towards the end of his life. Britten wrote many well-loved works, such as the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and the War Requiem. Britten was awarded the Order of Merit in 1965, had heart surgery in 1973 and died three years later.
Next up is Vaughan-Williams, but I might talk about him in a different post, since this post seems to have dragged on for long enough. TTFN!
Monday, September 9, 2013
The Romantic Period (c. 1830-1900)- Rachmaninov and his Second Piano Concerto
I'm not normally much of a crammer, but I must admit that one thing that I do cram for is Music written exams, particularly those relating to Cultural and Historical Perspectives or whatever the fancy name for it is nowadays. Writing this post is essentially my method of trying to cram for my test tomorrow. Hopefully it works.
Rachmaninov (or Rachmaninoff, depending on what transliteration you have, but definitely not "Maraschino" as Google Chrome's dictionary seems to suggest- no, I'm not kidding, that's what it suggests as a correct spelling of "Rachmaninov") was a Russian pianist, composer, conductor and poster-child for hypnotherapy. (Wow, all those roles start with p- or c-.) He was influenced by some of the other Russian composers of his time, particularly Tchaikovsky and "The Russian Five," a group of nationalistic Russian composers consisting of Cesar Cui, Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakiref, Modest Mussorgsky and Nicolas Rimsky-Korsakoff. These composers were among several Russian composers who were attempting to compose in a more Russian nationalistic style by collecting and adopting the traditions of Russian folk music.
Rachmaninov, born in Semyonovo in north-west Russia in 1873, showed skill at the piano from a young age, and he entered the Moscow Conservatorium at age 12. He wrote a lot of piano music, including several piano concertos. His First Piano Concerto was written when he was just 18 and was a very accomplished work. The first performance of his First Symphony (not to be confused with the aforementioned First Piano Concerto), however, did not go down very well, partly because it was under-rehearsed. Nevertheless, this failure sent Rachmaninov into a depression that left him unable to compose for several years. Eventually, he received hypnotherapy from Dr. Nikolai Dahl, which helped him to recover and write his Second Piano Concerto, which proved to be a great success.
Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto is structured more or less like most other Romantic solo concertos (well, the first movement is, at least). The first movement of Classical solo concertos often had a double exposition, in which the themes were played by the orchestra in the first exposition and by the soloist in the second. Romantic solo concertos, on the other hand, preferred to introduce the soloist first for more dramatic effect, though the first movement often still stayed in sonata form. The other main difference between the first movement structures of the two concertos is that, in a Classical concerto, the movement would be rounded off soon after the soloist finishes the cadenza (virtuous solo bit, where the soloist gets to show off their skills), while in a Romantic concerto, the movement would carry on for a bit longer before finishing. Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto subverts the whole cadenza thing entirely, though, by simply not having a cadenza in the first movement at all. I suppose the whole movement is challenging enough for the pianist, so much so that a cadenza isn't all too necessary. That, or maybe Rachmaninov just thought that a cadenza wouldn't "fit," which is also fair enough.
Anyway. Analysis time. The work starts off in F minor for 8 bars (if you can really define a tonality with all of those accidentals changing) and a whole lot of "bell-like" chords. I remember reading or hearing somewhere that these "bell-like" chords hark back to Rachmaninov's involvement with the Church, though I'm not sure which Church exactly (I'm assuming the Russian Orthodox Church, just because he's Russian, but I could be totally wrong) and I can't remember where I read that. These chords are pretty big, covering a wide range, but Rachmaninov had a pretty big hand-span so he didn't need to roll them (though many pianists do have to). It crescendos gradually until the 8th bar where you hear the basic motif- A flat, F, G, C, or f, r, m, l in moveable doh, which is heard several other times throughout the work.
Now begins the first theme in C minor! This first theme can be divided into 2 sections, A and B. A goes from about 0:25 on the recording to 0:47, while B goes from 0:47 to 1:42. The soloist doesn't actually get to play the melody here, rather it plays a lot of broken chords while the strings and the clarinet (yay!) get the melody. (The clarinet only really gets the melody for part A, though. Aww.) After the first theme, there's a short transition passage from 1:42 to 1:58, featuring some stepwise descending chords in the strings and homophony (harmony built on block chords) reminiscent of Russian marching music. Now onto theme 2!
Theme 2 (1:58-3:39) is in E-flat Major, keeping with the tradition that sonata-form works with theme 1 in the minor key have theme 2 in the relative major key. Theme 2 is introduced by a "quasi-introduction ostinato figure" from the clarinets before the actual Theme 2 is introduced by the piano- yes, the piano's playing the melody this time! I have written on my score that theme 2 in this movement is also the same as the 2nd theme of the 2nd movement, but when I listened to the second movement I didn't notice the similarities so I guess I'll have to listen again. Theme 2 features some "quasi-stretto" or staggered entries (you'll find that whoever wrote the analysis guide for 3AB music seems to like the word "quasi"), such as between the cello and piano, or later between the clarinet/oboe and piano, which give the music a polyphonic texture. Also, as the theme gets repeated, it becomes thicker, played first relatively simply and then in octaves with denser chords and a busier harmony built on triplets rather than quavers. Finally, Transition 2, in C minor, occurs between 3:39 and 4:20 before the development commences.
I don't really want to go into the development (4:20-5:57) into too much detail, or I'll bore you to death if I haven't already. There's little snippets of themes all over the place, including that basic motif that I introduced at the beginning (that Ab, F, G, C one, remember? It's played in an assortment of different keys throughout the work though), so perhaps all I can say is, have fun playing "Spot the Theme." Actually, I've come up with one more thing to say, or one more list of things to say, and that's a list of fancy terms to help guide your listening if you're that way inclined.
Retrograde: Playing something back-to-front. Sometimes a whole melody or melodic fragment can be played in reverse, or sometimes a rhythm might be reversed. For example, a minim then a crotchet would be played crotchet then minim.
Sequential passages: Passages in which sequences occur, a sequence being a melodic fragment repeated over and over at different pitches.
Diminution: A melodic fragment played using shorter note values. For example, minims might become crotchets and crotchets might become quavers. There's a good example of this in the recapitulation played by the horn.
Cross-rhythms: Conflicting rhythms like triplets and quavers played at the same time. Pianists just hate this. (Actually there's some awful ones in the piano throughout this work- I recall seeing one section with triplets in one hand and quintuplets in the other!)
Pedal notes: Long notes held over other changes in harmony. Sometimes they can hint at a key change- there's a G at the end of the development that hints at the change to C minor (G is the dominant of C minor and normally dominant chords are used to aid a modulation).
Also pay attention to the way that tension is created through extreme dynamic changes (piano goes from p to fff towards the end of the development) and through chromaticism.
The recapitulation begins at about 5:57. 1A is played by the strings while the piano plays an elaborate form of the basic motif. Soon the piano comes in with 1B, which, according to my notes, is the only time that the soloist plays theme 1. Next the horn comes in with an augmented version of Theme 2 in A-flat Major. Augmentation is the opposite of diminution (it's in the list of definitions above)- the melody is played with longer note values. Soon the clarinet gets to play the basic motif, except it sounds more peaceful. Bonus points if you spotted that before reading this.
As I said before, the piano doesn't get a cadenza in this movement. Instead, it just gets an arpeggiated figure using an extreme range of pitch where it would normally get a cadenza before having to play that awful (awful to play, that is, not to listen to) triplet/quintuplet thing.
The coda starts at 8:58. It's marked on my score as meno mosso, but it's still reasonably fast and will build up in speed and volume. After some sustained chords in the horns and some double stopping in the strings, the whole movement finishes with some fast ascending scales and a very abrupt perfect cadence in C minor!
Rachmaninov (or Rachmaninoff, depending on what transliteration you have, but definitely not "Maraschino" as Google Chrome's dictionary seems to suggest- no, I'm not kidding, that's what it suggests as a correct spelling of "Rachmaninov") was a Russian pianist, composer, conductor and poster-child for hypnotherapy. (Wow, all those roles start with p- or c-.) He was influenced by some of the other Russian composers of his time, particularly Tchaikovsky and "The Russian Five," a group of nationalistic Russian composers consisting of Cesar Cui, Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakiref, Modest Mussorgsky and Nicolas Rimsky-Korsakoff. These composers were among several Russian composers who were attempting to compose in a more Russian nationalistic style by collecting and adopting the traditions of Russian folk music.
Rachmaninov, born in Semyonovo in north-west Russia in 1873, showed skill at the piano from a young age, and he entered the Moscow Conservatorium at age 12. He wrote a lot of piano music, including several piano concertos. His First Piano Concerto was written when he was just 18 and was a very accomplished work. The first performance of his First Symphony (not to be confused with the aforementioned First Piano Concerto), however, did not go down very well, partly because it was under-rehearsed. Nevertheless, this failure sent Rachmaninov into a depression that left him unable to compose for several years. Eventually, he received hypnotherapy from Dr. Nikolai Dahl, which helped him to recover and write his Second Piano Concerto, which proved to be a great success.
Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto is structured more or less like most other Romantic solo concertos (well, the first movement is, at least). The first movement of Classical solo concertos often had a double exposition, in which the themes were played by the orchestra in the first exposition and by the soloist in the second. Romantic solo concertos, on the other hand, preferred to introduce the soloist first for more dramatic effect, though the first movement often still stayed in sonata form. The other main difference between the first movement structures of the two concertos is that, in a Classical concerto, the movement would be rounded off soon after the soloist finishes the cadenza (virtuous solo bit, where the soloist gets to show off their skills), while in a Romantic concerto, the movement would carry on for a bit longer before finishing. Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto subverts the whole cadenza thing entirely, though, by simply not having a cadenza in the first movement at all. I suppose the whole movement is challenging enough for the pianist, so much so that a cadenza isn't all too necessary. That, or maybe Rachmaninov just thought that a cadenza wouldn't "fit," which is also fair enough.
Anyway. Analysis time. The work starts off in F minor for 8 bars (if you can really define a tonality with all of those accidentals changing) and a whole lot of "bell-like" chords. I remember reading or hearing somewhere that these "bell-like" chords hark back to Rachmaninov's involvement with the Church, though I'm not sure which Church exactly (I'm assuming the Russian Orthodox Church, just because he's Russian, but I could be totally wrong) and I can't remember where I read that. These chords are pretty big, covering a wide range, but Rachmaninov had a pretty big hand-span so he didn't need to roll them (though many pianists do have to). It crescendos gradually until the 8th bar where you hear the basic motif- A flat, F, G, C, or f, r, m, l in moveable doh, which is heard several other times throughout the work.
Now begins the first theme in C minor! This first theme can be divided into 2 sections, A and B. A goes from about 0:25 on the recording to 0:47, while B goes from 0:47 to 1:42. The soloist doesn't actually get to play the melody here, rather it plays a lot of broken chords while the strings and the clarinet (yay!) get the melody. (The clarinet only really gets the melody for part A, though. Aww.) After the first theme, there's a short transition passage from 1:42 to 1:58, featuring some stepwise descending chords in the strings and homophony (harmony built on block chords) reminiscent of Russian marching music. Now onto theme 2!
Theme 2 (1:58-3:39) is in E-flat Major, keeping with the tradition that sonata-form works with theme 1 in the minor key have theme 2 in the relative major key. Theme 2 is introduced by a "quasi-introduction ostinato figure" from the clarinets before the actual Theme 2 is introduced by the piano- yes, the piano's playing the melody this time! I have written on my score that theme 2 in this movement is also the same as the 2nd theme of the 2nd movement, but when I listened to the second movement I didn't notice the similarities so I guess I'll have to listen again. Theme 2 features some "quasi-stretto" or staggered entries (you'll find that whoever wrote the analysis guide for 3AB music seems to like the word "quasi"), such as between the cello and piano, or later between the clarinet/oboe and piano, which give the music a polyphonic texture. Also, as the theme gets repeated, it becomes thicker, played first relatively simply and then in octaves with denser chords and a busier harmony built on triplets rather than quavers. Finally, Transition 2, in C minor, occurs between 3:39 and 4:20 before the development commences.
I don't really want to go into the development (4:20-5:57) into too much detail, or I'll bore you to death if I haven't already. There's little snippets of themes all over the place, including that basic motif that I introduced at the beginning (that Ab, F, G, C one, remember? It's played in an assortment of different keys throughout the work though), so perhaps all I can say is, have fun playing "Spot the Theme." Actually, I've come up with one more thing to say, or one more list of things to say, and that's a list of fancy terms to help guide your listening if you're that way inclined.
Retrograde: Playing something back-to-front. Sometimes a whole melody or melodic fragment can be played in reverse, or sometimes a rhythm might be reversed. For example, a minim then a crotchet would be played crotchet then minim.
Sequential passages: Passages in which sequences occur, a sequence being a melodic fragment repeated over and over at different pitches.
Diminution: A melodic fragment played using shorter note values. For example, minims might become crotchets and crotchets might become quavers. There's a good example of this in the recapitulation played by the horn.
Cross-rhythms: Conflicting rhythms like triplets and quavers played at the same time. Pianists just hate this. (Actually there's some awful ones in the piano throughout this work- I recall seeing one section with triplets in one hand and quintuplets in the other!)
Pedal notes: Long notes held over other changes in harmony. Sometimes they can hint at a key change- there's a G at the end of the development that hints at the change to C minor (G is the dominant of C minor and normally dominant chords are used to aid a modulation).
Also pay attention to the way that tension is created through extreme dynamic changes (piano goes from p to fff towards the end of the development) and through chromaticism.
The recapitulation begins at about 5:57. 1A is played by the strings while the piano plays an elaborate form of the basic motif. Soon the piano comes in with 1B, which, according to my notes, is the only time that the soloist plays theme 1. Next the horn comes in with an augmented version of Theme 2 in A-flat Major. Augmentation is the opposite of diminution (it's in the list of definitions above)- the melody is played with longer note values. Soon the clarinet gets to play the basic motif, except it sounds more peaceful. Bonus points if you spotted that before reading this.
As I said before, the piano doesn't get a cadenza in this movement. Instead, it just gets an arpeggiated figure using an extreme range of pitch where it would normally get a cadenza before having to play that awful (awful to play, that is, not to listen to) triplet/quintuplet thing.
The coda starts at 8:58. It's marked on my score as meno mosso, but it's still reasonably fast and will build up in speed and volume. After some sustained chords in the horns and some double stopping in the strings, the whole movement finishes with some fast ascending scales and a very abrupt perfect cadence in C minor!
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
20th Century Onwards- French composers, Impressionism, and other stuff
Recently we've been pummelled left, right and centre with a ton of Music Lit stuff to learn. This blog post is only part of my desperate efforts to sort through all this stuff. After this post there'll probably be something on Rachmaninov and his 2nd piano concerto, Ralph Vaughan-Williams and his Songs of Travel and maybe a post on lieder as well. We'll see. As it is, this blog post is only going to be a work in progress, since we still have way more stuff to get through. And to think that we only have six weeks left of school...?! Scary.
ANYWAY I need to stop procrastinating (there was like a full 24 hours before finishing writing the previous paragraph and starting this one) and get on with this blog post.
So. 20th Century. Comes pretty much right after the Romantic Period, if you can really define start and end dates for a period. Just as nearly every period can be argued to be both an extension of and a reaction against what the trends were in the previous period (e.g. forms like sonata form etc. carried on from the Classical Period to the Romantic Period, but different Romantic composers adapted the forms in different ways to express the emotions that they wanted to convey), so can the music of the 20th century be regarded as an extension to and a reaction against Romanticism.
Of course there's a whole array of different styles in the whole past century, but I'm only really going to mention a few in this post before focusing on impressionism. The 20th century saw a whole variety of scales that hadn't been used in Western music over the past few hundred years, like the whole-tone, pentatonic and modal scales. (I say "over the past few hundred years" because modal scales have their roots in medieval church modes. The other two I think weren't really a part of Western music until this point, but I'm not sure.) The 20th century also saw atonality- music that wasn't centred on any particular degree of the scale. Atonality is comprised of different systems of organisation like the "12-note system" in which music is created from "tone-rows" consisting of all 12 notes of the scale, and it's systems like this that inspired composers like Stravinsky and Messaien.
The nationalistic sentiments that were common during the Romantic period continued through to the 20th century. The USA, a young country at that time, was starting to acquire its own major composers who were composing distinctively "American" music, like Gershwin and Copland. Some of the major events of this period also inspired composers, particularly the two world wars. Ravel, for instance, was an ambulance driver during the WWI. If I remember correctly, he wrote his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand for a soldier who had lost his right hand during the war. Some of the major events reduced compositional output- for example, the Great Depression limited resources, so composers had to compose for smaller groups. Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia also severely limited the freedom of composers, so many composers from Germany and Russia had to flee in order to continue writing freely.
And now for one of the main subjects of this post: impressionism! Impressionism is another one of those things that is kind of a continuation of and a reaction to the previous movement. While Romantic-era music was often programmatic- that is, the music tells stories- Impressionist music simply conveys an image or a mood without getting into specifics like Romantic music did with different themes for different characters and whatnot. Impressionist music also follows fewer rules than Romantic music (i.e. it's not so concerned about parallel 5ths and 8ves and stuff)- it just does whatever it needs to in order to make sure the mood or image or whatever is being portrayed. Colour is also more important in Impressionist music than in Romantic music.
Impressionist music didn't spring out of nowhere- it was often inspired by Impressionist art or Symbolist poetry. Symbolist poetry uses a lot of symbols (hence the name) to convey objects rather than the object itself. Also, in symbolist poetry, the sounds that words make are just as important as the meanings of the words themselves. Impressionist art uses vague, hazy brush strokes and lines in order to convey a mood or an atmosphere of the place. Lots of impressionist art uses cooler colours like blues and greens.
One of the pioneers of Impressionist music was Claude Debussy, but if you ever time-travel and meet up with him, don't call him an Impressionist, since Debussy hated having such labels stuck on him. Still, though, it's often heralded that his Prelude à L'aprés-midi d'un Faune (I hope I got all the accents right there!) marked the start of 20th-century Impressionist music. It wasn't all that well-received to start off with, though- people thought that the orchestra was just tuning up when they heard it! This could be because it doesn't have a strong sense of meter as most music from previous eras did, and tends to flow in a wash of sound and colour- the musical equivalent of Impressionist art.
A bit more about Debussy: He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 10 and wowed/shocked his teachers with his non-adherence to musical rules. One of his teachers said something along the lines of, "it sounds nice, but it doesn't follow the rules!" (One of my fellow students complained that Debussy's music "didn't make sense" because Debussy's "crazy." When asked why he thought that Debussy's "crazy," he replied "because Debussy's music doesn't make sense." A bit of circular reasoning there...) He also won the Prix de Rome in 1884 with his cantata L'enfant prodigue. Ravel, another French composer often thought of as Debussy's "rival," never managed to win this prize despite entering 5 times.
Debussy believed that his work needed to be "flexible and adaptable to fantasies and dreams." He received inspiration from a variety of different sources, such as Symbolist poetry and the Javanese gamelan music that he heard during the 1889 Paris Exposition. He wrote music for orchestras, chamber ensembles and piano as well as possibly a myriad of other works that don't fall into those categories. I think he wrote ballet music but I'm not too sure.
Debussy was also very French. Apparently he walked out of the Paris premier of Mahler's Second Symphony because he felt that it was too foreign! (But duh, Mahler's German, shouldn't he have the right to write German music?! Unless Mahler's music didn't sound German, in which case maybe Debussy did have the right to protest. In fact, in my notes it says that Debussy and his friends thought that Mahler's Second Symphony was "too Viennese..."). Maybe it was this nationalistic sentiment (I seem to have been using that phrase a helluva lot in this post...) that drove him to compose in his own style unique to him and unique to his country: more delicate and gentle and stuff rather than all that heavy chromaticism and massive displays of emotion as was common in late Romantic German music.
Debussy's style was quite unique. He used many different scales such as whole tone, pentatonic and modal rather than the major/minor tonalities heavily favoured in previous eras. His music tends not to have a strong meter, but rather have a more floating, free quality to it. Harmonic progressions in his music tend not to have a very strong sense of "progression," and tend to be more a series of chords to be appreciated as they are (for example, no cadences or dissonances that need to be resolved). Tone colour was important to him, though, so he thought of the orchestra as individual instruments with unique tone colours to be utilised in many different ways, rather than as four families of instruments.
There's no better way to learn about a composer's music style than by listening to his or her music, though, so let's have a listen to one of Debussy's piano preludes, The Sunken Cathedral (or La Cathédrale engloutie- its original French title).
First things first- the piano piece really is about a sunken cathedral. Although Impressionist music tends not to be very programmatic (i.e. it doesn't strictly tell a story), this particular work does. Debussy does have a lot of other works that convey images or moods rather than stories, but I guess this isn't one of them.
The story is based off a Breton myth in which a cathedral near the Island of Ys rises up from beneath the water on a clear day. Throughout the work, church bells, choirs and waves are suggested through the open harmonies and low rippling figures in the bass line.
The harmony throughout the beginning is very open, with parallel 5ths and 8ves- a fine example of Debussy breaking the standard rules of harmony. The open 5ths and 8ves can suggest organum- one of the earliest attempts to create harmonies, which involved simply adding a line a 5th or an 8ve above or below an original line to create harmony. A wide range is also used, making the chords seem even more open. Additionally, the low notes give the sense of something submerged deep beneath the waves. The dynamic marking here is pianissimo, as the cathedral is still muffled by the water.
This work is another of Debussy's where there is no clear sense of meter, giving a sense of timelessness and I guess an infinite, mystical quality. (I'm not sure if you can use the word "infinite" like that, but whatever.) This is done through the very slow tempo, the open chords that don't resolve to give a strong accent anywhere, and rhythms that cross over bar lines (syncopation).
One way in which Debussy has attempted to convey the story of the Sunken Cathedral is through his use of very specific instructions in French (carrying on from the Romantic tradition of writing instructions in one's native tongue). The piano score has very specific instructions such as "Peu à peu sortant de la brume" (gradually emerging from the haze), "sonore sans dureté" (sonorous without hardness) and "flottant et sourd" (floating and muffled).
When the cathedral is still just emerging from the haze, the bass line changes to a flowing triplet rhythm signifying the waves. There are several series of fairly thick ascending chords, which can be interpreted as the cathedral rising from the waves. The thickness of the chords could very well be the church choirs which are now starting to become audible. Soon, the instruction "augmentez progressivement" (progressively getting louder) is given, as the cathedral is now more above the water and thus its sounds are more readily heard. More open chords are heard, signifying church bells, and then more thick chords, which are "sonorous without hardness" are heard. These chords are fortissimo, a large contrast to the pianissimo at the beginning of the work. Now, the cathedral is completely above the water, and the choirs can be heard loud and strong.
By the way, I have in my notes a fancy little term for this use of parallel diatonic chords. Apparently, it's called "planing."
More of these chords are heard, still at fortissimo, until it decrescendos back down to piano, as the cathedral is now beginning to sink back underwater and the choirs and bells are becoming more muffled again. Further on, there are some parallel dominant 7ths, none of which resolve to a tonic chord of any kind. Towards the end, more rippling figures are heard as a sort of ostinato, "comme un echo de la phrase entendue précedemment" (like an echo of the preceding phrase), once again signifying the waves.
Other stuff to notice: There's a fair few pedal notes. Yay. Tonality-wise, even though Debussy doesn't often use major/minor tonalities, there are some sections of this work which could be classed as B Major, but then again there's a whole bunch of other sections which could be considered pentatonic, mixolydian, whole-tone or phrygian. If this is your cup of tea then take a look at this harmonic analysis of The Sunken Cathedral here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwvtwlSh5U
That's pretty much it from me for now on The Sunken Cathedral. Now to briefly talk about some other stuff!
The Sunken Cathedral is just one piano prelude of Debussy's. Debussy wrote two books of piano preludes. The preludes either have ambiguous titles (e.g. "Voiles," which means "sails" or "veils") or descriptive titles like "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair." In some editions of his books, the titles are placed at the end. The idea is that you listen and work out an image and a meaning for yourself, and then find out what Debussy really intended. Aside from piano music, Debussy also wrote lots of music for different combinations of instruments, like his orchestral work "La Mer" (the sea). A lot of Debussy's works involve the ocean or water in some form or another.
Now let's have a look at some other French composers, just for comparison! (And I've just realised that Debussy's The Sunken Cathedral kind of got delegated to the position of "the other stuff" in the title of this blog post. Sorry, Debussy.)
Okay, well, first of all I should probably talk about Ravel, since Ravel often gets compared to Debussy. Ravel and Debussy often influenced each other. Ravel's inspiration came from Javanese gamelan music (which also inspired Debussy), Russian music, and the music of some German composers like Wagner. He was also influenced by poetry and by world events such as WWI. Another influence on his music was the death of his mother.
Ravel entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 14 and graduated in 1985. Two years later, he studied composition with Gabriel Fauré. He was a member of the artistic circle "Les Apaches." He wrote a variety of compositions, but is probably best known for his work Bolero, which includes a rather repetitive but catchy snare drum pattern. Ravel was often known for his orchestration, and often had instruments' tone colour in mind- just like Debussy, in a way. However, unlike Debussy, he wrote works that were sometimes considered "Neo-Classical" due to the presence of firm structures and clear melodic contour reminiscent of the Classical period- a far cry from Debussy's freer structure and floating melodies.
Fauré, Ravel's teacher in 1987, became a boarder at the Ecole Niedermeyer at age 9, where he learned church music, organ, piano, harmony, counterpoint and literature, and graduated with awards in almost every subject. He took on various organist positions as well as taught music. He formed the Société Nationale de Musique with his friends. Apparently a lot of his works were premiered there too. In 1986, Fauré became the composition professor at the Paris Conservatoire, and in 1905 became the director of the Conservatory. Fauré wasn't as well-known for his orchestration as Debussy and Ravel, but that certainly didn't stop him from composing lots of music. One of my favourites is his Pavane.
Satie was a pretty crazy guy. He did all kinds of weird things like buy 12 identical velvet suits just for the hell of it and put his umbrella under his coat if it was raining because he didn't want his umbrella to get wet. He wrote a lot of music with weird titles, like "Three Flabby Preludes for a Dog" and "Three Preludes in the Shape of a Pear." His music also had a bunch of bizarre instructions as well- apparently the former work had instructions in "Dog Latin" or something like that. One of his most famous works is his Gymnopédie No. 1.
Poulenc composed an awesome sonata for clarinet and piano. He was the leading member of the group "Les Six," a group of composers who aimed to turn music away from impressionism and intellectualism. He once said that his music was not to be analysed, but to be enjoyed. After his friend passed away, he started composing more sacred music, like his Gloria.
That's it from me- it's late-ish now (well, late for me anyway) and I have to touch up my Lit essay a bit and then go to sleep since I have orchestra tomorrow morning and then the Athletics Carnival which I'll go to if it's not raining. (I can't really afford to get too sick in such a vital term.) Good night, or good morning/afternoon, depending on what time of day it is when you're reading this.
ANYWAY I need to stop procrastinating (there was like a full 24 hours before finishing writing the previous paragraph and starting this one) and get on with this blog post.
So. 20th Century. Comes pretty much right after the Romantic Period, if you can really define start and end dates for a period. Just as nearly every period can be argued to be both an extension of and a reaction against what the trends were in the previous period (e.g. forms like sonata form etc. carried on from the Classical Period to the Romantic Period, but different Romantic composers adapted the forms in different ways to express the emotions that they wanted to convey), so can the music of the 20th century be regarded as an extension to and a reaction against Romanticism.
Of course there's a whole array of different styles in the whole past century, but I'm only really going to mention a few in this post before focusing on impressionism. The 20th century saw a whole variety of scales that hadn't been used in Western music over the past few hundred years, like the whole-tone, pentatonic and modal scales. (I say "over the past few hundred years" because modal scales have their roots in medieval church modes. The other two I think weren't really a part of Western music until this point, but I'm not sure.) The 20th century also saw atonality- music that wasn't centred on any particular degree of the scale. Atonality is comprised of different systems of organisation like the "12-note system" in which music is created from "tone-rows" consisting of all 12 notes of the scale, and it's systems like this that inspired composers like Stravinsky and Messaien.
The nationalistic sentiments that were common during the Romantic period continued through to the 20th century. The USA, a young country at that time, was starting to acquire its own major composers who were composing distinctively "American" music, like Gershwin and Copland. Some of the major events of this period also inspired composers, particularly the two world wars. Ravel, for instance, was an ambulance driver during the WWI. If I remember correctly, he wrote his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand for a soldier who had lost his right hand during the war. Some of the major events reduced compositional output- for example, the Great Depression limited resources, so composers had to compose for smaller groups. Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia also severely limited the freedom of composers, so many composers from Germany and Russia had to flee in order to continue writing freely.
And now for one of the main subjects of this post: impressionism! Impressionism is another one of those things that is kind of a continuation of and a reaction to the previous movement. While Romantic-era music was often programmatic- that is, the music tells stories- Impressionist music simply conveys an image or a mood without getting into specifics like Romantic music did with different themes for different characters and whatnot. Impressionist music also follows fewer rules than Romantic music (i.e. it's not so concerned about parallel 5ths and 8ves and stuff)- it just does whatever it needs to in order to make sure the mood or image or whatever is being portrayed. Colour is also more important in Impressionist music than in Romantic music.
Impressionist music didn't spring out of nowhere- it was often inspired by Impressionist art or Symbolist poetry. Symbolist poetry uses a lot of symbols (hence the name) to convey objects rather than the object itself. Also, in symbolist poetry, the sounds that words make are just as important as the meanings of the words themselves. Impressionist art uses vague, hazy brush strokes and lines in order to convey a mood or an atmosphere of the place. Lots of impressionist art uses cooler colours like blues and greens.
One of the pioneers of Impressionist music was Claude Debussy, but if you ever time-travel and meet up with him, don't call him an Impressionist, since Debussy hated having such labels stuck on him. Still, though, it's often heralded that his Prelude à L'aprés-midi d'un Faune (I hope I got all the accents right there!) marked the start of 20th-century Impressionist music. It wasn't all that well-received to start off with, though- people thought that the orchestra was just tuning up when they heard it! This could be because it doesn't have a strong sense of meter as most music from previous eras did, and tends to flow in a wash of sound and colour- the musical equivalent of Impressionist art.
A bit more about Debussy: He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 10 and wowed/shocked his teachers with his non-adherence to musical rules. One of his teachers said something along the lines of, "it sounds nice, but it doesn't follow the rules!" (One of my fellow students complained that Debussy's music "didn't make sense" because Debussy's "crazy." When asked why he thought that Debussy's "crazy," he replied "because Debussy's music doesn't make sense." A bit of circular reasoning there...) He also won the Prix de Rome in 1884 with his cantata L'enfant prodigue. Ravel, another French composer often thought of as Debussy's "rival," never managed to win this prize despite entering 5 times.
Debussy believed that his work needed to be "flexible and adaptable to fantasies and dreams." He received inspiration from a variety of different sources, such as Symbolist poetry and the Javanese gamelan music that he heard during the 1889 Paris Exposition. He wrote music for orchestras, chamber ensembles and piano as well as possibly a myriad of other works that don't fall into those categories. I think he wrote ballet music but I'm not too sure.
Debussy was also very French. Apparently he walked out of the Paris premier of Mahler's Second Symphony because he felt that it was too foreign! (But duh, Mahler's German, shouldn't he have the right to write German music?! Unless Mahler's music didn't sound German, in which case maybe Debussy did have the right to protest. In fact, in my notes it says that Debussy and his friends thought that Mahler's Second Symphony was "too Viennese..."). Maybe it was this nationalistic sentiment (I seem to have been using that phrase a helluva lot in this post...) that drove him to compose in his own style unique to him and unique to his country: more delicate and gentle and stuff rather than all that heavy chromaticism and massive displays of emotion as was common in late Romantic German music.
Debussy's style was quite unique. He used many different scales such as whole tone, pentatonic and modal rather than the major/minor tonalities heavily favoured in previous eras. His music tends not to have a strong meter, but rather have a more floating, free quality to it. Harmonic progressions in his music tend not to have a very strong sense of "progression," and tend to be more a series of chords to be appreciated as they are (for example, no cadences or dissonances that need to be resolved). Tone colour was important to him, though, so he thought of the orchestra as individual instruments with unique tone colours to be utilised in many different ways, rather than as four families of instruments.
There's no better way to learn about a composer's music style than by listening to his or her music, though, so let's have a listen to one of Debussy's piano preludes, The Sunken Cathedral (or La Cathédrale engloutie- its original French title).
First things first- the piano piece really is about a sunken cathedral. Although Impressionist music tends not to be very programmatic (i.e. it doesn't strictly tell a story), this particular work does. Debussy does have a lot of other works that convey images or moods rather than stories, but I guess this isn't one of them.
The story is based off a Breton myth in which a cathedral near the Island of Ys rises up from beneath the water on a clear day. Throughout the work, church bells, choirs and waves are suggested through the open harmonies and low rippling figures in the bass line.
The harmony throughout the beginning is very open, with parallel 5ths and 8ves- a fine example of Debussy breaking the standard rules of harmony. The open 5ths and 8ves can suggest organum- one of the earliest attempts to create harmonies, which involved simply adding a line a 5th or an 8ve above or below an original line to create harmony. A wide range is also used, making the chords seem even more open. Additionally, the low notes give the sense of something submerged deep beneath the waves. The dynamic marking here is pianissimo, as the cathedral is still muffled by the water.
This work is another of Debussy's where there is no clear sense of meter, giving a sense of timelessness and I guess an infinite, mystical quality. (I'm not sure if you can use the word "infinite" like that, but whatever.) This is done through the very slow tempo, the open chords that don't resolve to give a strong accent anywhere, and rhythms that cross over bar lines (syncopation).
One way in which Debussy has attempted to convey the story of the Sunken Cathedral is through his use of very specific instructions in French (carrying on from the Romantic tradition of writing instructions in one's native tongue). The piano score has very specific instructions such as "Peu à peu sortant de la brume" (gradually emerging from the haze), "sonore sans dureté" (sonorous without hardness) and "flottant et sourd" (floating and muffled).
When the cathedral is still just emerging from the haze, the bass line changes to a flowing triplet rhythm signifying the waves. There are several series of fairly thick ascending chords, which can be interpreted as the cathedral rising from the waves. The thickness of the chords could very well be the church choirs which are now starting to become audible. Soon, the instruction "augmentez progressivement" (progressively getting louder) is given, as the cathedral is now more above the water and thus its sounds are more readily heard. More open chords are heard, signifying church bells, and then more thick chords, which are "sonorous without hardness" are heard. These chords are fortissimo, a large contrast to the pianissimo at the beginning of the work. Now, the cathedral is completely above the water, and the choirs can be heard loud and strong.
By the way, I have in my notes a fancy little term for this use of parallel diatonic chords. Apparently, it's called "planing."
More of these chords are heard, still at fortissimo, until it decrescendos back down to piano, as the cathedral is now beginning to sink back underwater and the choirs and bells are becoming more muffled again. Further on, there are some parallel dominant 7ths, none of which resolve to a tonic chord of any kind. Towards the end, more rippling figures are heard as a sort of ostinato, "comme un echo de la phrase entendue précedemment" (like an echo of the preceding phrase), once again signifying the waves.
Other stuff to notice: There's a fair few pedal notes. Yay. Tonality-wise, even though Debussy doesn't often use major/minor tonalities, there are some sections of this work which could be classed as B Major, but then again there's a whole bunch of other sections which could be considered pentatonic, mixolydian, whole-tone or phrygian. If this is your cup of tea then take a look at this harmonic analysis of The Sunken Cathedral here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwvtwlSh5U
That's pretty much it from me for now on The Sunken Cathedral. Now to briefly talk about some other stuff!
The Sunken Cathedral is just one piano prelude of Debussy's. Debussy wrote two books of piano preludes. The preludes either have ambiguous titles (e.g. "Voiles," which means "sails" or "veils") or descriptive titles like "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair." In some editions of his books, the titles are placed at the end. The idea is that you listen and work out an image and a meaning for yourself, and then find out what Debussy really intended. Aside from piano music, Debussy also wrote lots of music for different combinations of instruments, like his orchestral work "La Mer" (the sea). A lot of Debussy's works involve the ocean or water in some form or another.
Now let's have a look at some other French composers, just for comparison! (And I've just realised that Debussy's The Sunken Cathedral kind of got delegated to the position of "the other stuff" in the title of this blog post. Sorry, Debussy.)
Okay, well, first of all I should probably talk about Ravel, since Ravel often gets compared to Debussy. Ravel and Debussy often influenced each other. Ravel's inspiration came from Javanese gamelan music (which also inspired Debussy), Russian music, and the music of some German composers like Wagner. He was also influenced by poetry and by world events such as WWI. Another influence on his music was the death of his mother.
Ravel entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 14 and graduated in 1985. Two years later, he studied composition with Gabriel Fauré. He was a member of the artistic circle "Les Apaches." He wrote a variety of compositions, but is probably best known for his work Bolero, which includes a rather repetitive but catchy snare drum pattern. Ravel was often known for his orchestration, and often had instruments' tone colour in mind- just like Debussy, in a way. However, unlike Debussy, he wrote works that were sometimes considered "Neo-Classical" due to the presence of firm structures and clear melodic contour reminiscent of the Classical period- a far cry from Debussy's freer structure and floating melodies.
Fauré, Ravel's teacher in 1987, became a boarder at the Ecole Niedermeyer at age 9, where he learned church music, organ, piano, harmony, counterpoint and literature, and graduated with awards in almost every subject. He took on various organist positions as well as taught music. He formed the Société Nationale de Musique with his friends. Apparently a lot of his works were premiered there too. In 1986, Fauré became the composition professor at the Paris Conservatoire, and in 1905 became the director of the Conservatory. Fauré wasn't as well-known for his orchestration as Debussy and Ravel, but that certainly didn't stop him from composing lots of music. One of my favourites is his Pavane.
Satie was a pretty crazy guy. He did all kinds of weird things like buy 12 identical velvet suits just for the hell of it and put his umbrella under his coat if it was raining because he didn't want his umbrella to get wet. He wrote a lot of music with weird titles, like "Three Flabby Preludes for a Dog" and "Three Preludes in the Shape of a Pear." His music also had a bunch of bizarre instructions as well- apparently the former work had instructions in "Dog Latin" or something like that. One of his most famous works is his Gymnopédie No. 1.
Poulenc composed an awesome sonata for clarinet and piano. He was the leading member of the group "Les Six," a group of composers who aimed to turn music away from impressionism and intellectualism. He once said that his music was not to be analysed, but to be enjoyed. After his friend passed away, he started composing more sacred music, like his Gloria.
That's it from me- it's late-ish now (well, late for me anyway) and I have to touch up my Lit essay a bit and then go to sleep since I have orchestra tomorrow morning and then the Athletics Carnival which I'll go to if it's not raining. (I can't really afford to get too sick in such a vital term.) Good night, or good morning/afternoon, depending on what time of day it is when you're reading this.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Ways to Remember Oxidation and Reduction
One of the things that trips me up in chemistry is getting my head around which element is oxidised and which is reduced and which one is the oxidant and which one is the reductant in a redox reaction. They're not terribly difficult concepts really, but it's easy to get them mixed up. It's also pretty easy to get all mixed up between which process takes place at which electrode when a substance is undergoing electrolysis. So here I'm going to compile as many different ways as I can think of as remembering which one is which. Having a variety of different methods might just make you more confused, though, so read on with caution!
If you have absolutely no clue what I'm talking about, then look at my pages on redox equations and electrolysis.
Anyway. Here we go with all the mnemonics and whatnot:
AN OIL RIG CAT
This is probably the one you'd have been taught in your Chem class. OIL stands for Oxidation is Loss [of electrons], and RIG stands for Reduction is Gain [of electrons]. So, to find out whether something is being oxidised or reduced, just work out of the substance is losing or gaining electrons and then apply this mnemonic. Another nifty thing this mnemonic does is it helps you remember where oxidation and reduction takes place in electrolytic cells or whatever they're called. You see, AN stands for anode, and it's where Oxidation (which Is Loss) takes place. CAT stands for cathode, and it comes directly after RIG as the cathode is where Reduction (which Is Gain) takes place.
Reduction = Reduced [oxidation number]
This is the way I remember it. A substance is being reduced if its oxidation number is reduced. A substance is being oxidised if its oxidisation number is increasing (higher oxidation number = more oxidation?). Then you just have to remember that the reducing agent is the thing being oxidised and vice versa. (I find that once I work out what's being oxidised and reduced, it's much easier to work out the oxidant and reductant.)
Cathode = Cations
One way that I remember that stuff gets reduced at the cathode is that cations (positive ions) go to the cathode. Since the ions are already positive, they'd probably be wanting to gain electrons, meaning that there's a reduction taking place. Similar reasoning can be applied for the anode: anions (negative ions) go to the anode, and they probably would be wanting to lose some electrons rather than gain them. Hence oxidation takes place at the anode.
If you have absolutely no clue what I'm talking about, then look at my pages on redox equations and electrolysis.
Anyway. Here we go with all the mnemonics and whatnot:
AN OIL RIG CAT
This is probably the one you'd have been taught in your Chem class. OIL stands for Oxidation is Loss [of electrons], and RIG stands for Reduction is Gain [of electrons]. So, to find out whether something is being oxidised or reduced, just work out of the substance is losing or gaining electrons and then apply this mnemonic. Another nifty thing this mnemonic does is it helps you remember where oxidation and reduction takes place in electrolytic cells or whatever they're called. You see, AN stands for anode, and it's where Oxidation (which Is Loss) takes place. CAT stands for cathode, and it comes directly after RIG as the cathode is where Reduction (which Is Gain) takes place.
Reduction = Reduced [oxidation number]
This is the way I remember it. A substance is being reduced if its oxidation number is reduced. A substance is being oxidised if its oxidisation number is increasing (higher oxidation number = more oxidation?). Then you just have to remember that the reducing agent is the thing being oxidised and vice versa. (I find that once I work out what's being oxidised and reduced, it's much easier to work out the oxidant and reductant.)
Cathode = Cations
One way that I remember that stuff gets reduced at the cathode is that cations (positive ions) go to the cathode. Since the ions are already positive, they'd probably be wanting to gain electrons, meaning that there's a reduction taking place. Similar reasoning can be applied for the anode: anions (negative ions) go to the anode, and they probably would be wanting to lose some electrons rather than gain them. Hence oxidation takes place at the anode.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Titrations- Basics of Titrations and Acid-Base Titrations
Argh. Titrations. I. HATE. TITRATIONS. But titrations are part of studying chemistry, so I guess I'll just have to get over it.
Basically, in titrations, you have one solution with a known concentration, and another solution of an unknown concentration that you want to find the concentration of. To do so, you basically get a known quantity of one solution, like 20mL, and then you add gradually increasing quantities of the other solution until you get some kind of indication that the reaction has gone to completion. Then you use all the stoichiometry stuff learned from before to work out the concentration of the unknown substance.
Now here comes the kicker. Titration lab work. Ugh.
As I mentioned, you need to have a solution with a known concentration. And the best way to know what the exact concentration of your solution is is to make it yourself so that you know exactly what goes inside it.
The problem? A lot of caution is needed to make sure nothing gets contaminated. Also, you need to decide on a good solution to make up. Not all solutions are equal for this purpose. The best substances are those known as primary standards. Primary standards have characteristics that make them good for making up into solutions of known concentrations: they are pure and aren't deliquescent (i.e. don't absorb water). They are anhydrous and don't react readily with stuff in the atmosphere. It's also good if the substance has a relatively high molar mass, which will make it easier to measure out one mole (or however much you need) with a greater accuracy.
Making a Solution of a Primary Standard
The first step in making a primary standard solution is working out how much solid needs to be dissolved. To do this, take a look at my post on simple calculations involving moles. Measure this amount out in a petri dish (remember to put the petri dish on the scales and tare before putting any solid on) and then tip the solid into a beaker (make to rinse the beaker with distilled water first to avoid contamination). Dissolve it with a little bit of distilled water in here. Remember, you must use distilled water, otherwise you'll have other random ions floating around in your solution which you don't want. After dissolving, first rinse a volumetric flask of whatever size you need with distilled water, then pour in the solution and make it up to the mark with some more distilled water. Remember that the bottom of the meniscus must be level with the mark (when read from eye level). Then put a stopper on and swirl the solution around a bit so that everything's all nice and mixed around. Finally, get a storage bottle, and rinse a couple of times with distilled water, and then with a little bit of the solution. Now that's done, pour in the rest of the solution. You have now made up a solution with a known concentration. Yay.
The Titration Part: Acid/Base Titrations
Now that you have a solution of a known concentration, it's time to titrate it with something to make all that hard work worth it. There are different types of titrations- I'm just going to start off with acid/base ones because we've been doing acid/base titrations in class.
What you'll need: a pipette (a reasonably large one that can hold 20-25mL, not one of those puny ones), a burette (kind of like a long plastic pipe with measurements and a little tap thing on the end so you can control how much liquid comes out), some conical flasks, a retort stand and burette holder. You'll probably want one or two small beakers so that you can pour stuff into there before transferring it to the burette or conical flask. Oh, and you'll also need some indicator for acid/base titrations. The type of indicator depends on what you're titrating- more on that later.
I really should draw a picture of something of how to set it up. Better yet, I could take a photo so that you can see all the equipment properly. It would probably help if I could be bothered to sync my phone up to my computer though. Ah well.
Anyway... basically what you do is first you rinse the pipette with whatever you're going to put into the conical flasks, the burette with whatever you're going to put in the burette, and the conical flasks with distilled water. Also you should rinse the little beakers with whatever you're planning to put in there. (I'll explain the reasons behind all the rinsing later.) Then you use the pipette to put a certain amount of one solution into the conical flask, and a small funnel to put the other solution into the burette (you don't have to fill all the way to the 0mL mark, but you can't go over). Write down the initial reading. Put a few drops of indicator into the conical flask.
Now you're ready for your rough titration. Turn on the tap of the burette and swirl the flask around. Occasionally, stop pouring stuff in and stop swirling the flask to see if there's a permanent colour change throughout the whole liquid. Stop titrating when you get a permanent change. Write down the reading on the burette and work out how much of the solution was consumed. Now, do it again, except stop titrating a few mL before you use up the amount that you used before (e.g. if you needed 20mL last time, stop titrating once you've used up 17 or 18mL). Now go more slowly, drop by drop, until you work out the exact drop needed to get a permanent colour change. Do this a few times. When you have more or less the same amount consumed for multiple titrations, choose this amount for your calculations.
Now I've explained what a titration is, I'm going to explain the finer points in a bit more detail!
Rinsing
What do you rinse with what, and why? Here's a guide:
When preparing a solution
Basically, in titrations, you have one solution with a known concentration, and another solution of an unknown concentration that you want to find the concentration of. To do so, you basically get a known quantity of one solution, like 20mL, and then you add gradually increasing quantities of the other solution until you get some kind of indication that the reaction has gone to completion. Then you use all the stoichiometry stuff learned from before to work out the concentration of the unknown substance.
Now here comes the kicker. Titration lab work. Ugh.
As I mentioned, you need to have a solution with a known concentration. And the best way to know what the exact concentration of your solution is is to make it yourself so that you know exactly what goes inside it.
The problem? A lot of caution is needed to make sure nothing gets contaminated. Also, you need to decide on a good solution to make up. Not all solutions are equal for this purpose. The best substances are those known as primary standards. Primary standards have characteristics that make them good for making up into solutions of known concentrations: they are pure and aren't deliquescent (i.e. don't absorb water). They are anhydrous and don't react readily with stuff in the atmosphere. It's also good if the substance has a relatively high molar mass, which will make it easier to measure out one mole (or however much you need) with a greater accuracy.
Making a Solution of a Primary Standard
The first step in making a primary standard solution is working out how much solid needs to be dissolved. To do this, take a look at my post on simple calculations involving moles. Measure this amount out in a petri dish (remember to put the petri dish on the scales and tare before putting any solid on) and then tip the solid into a beaker (make to rinse the beaker with distilled water first to avoid contamination). Dissolve it with a little bit of distilled water in here. Remember, you must use distilled water, otherwise you'll have other random ions floating around in your solution which you don't want. After dissolving, first rinse a volumetric flask of whatever size you need with distilled water, then pour in the solution and make it up to the mark with some more distilled water. Remember that the bottom of the meniscus must be level with the mark (when read from eye level). Then put a stopper on and swirl the solution around a bit so that everything's all nice and mixed around. Finally, get a storage bottle, and rinse a couple of times with distilled water, and then with a little bit of the solution. Now that's done, pour in the rest of the solution. You have now made up a solution with a known concentration. Yay.
The Titration Part: Acid/Base Titrations
Now that you have a solution of a known concentration, it's time to titrate it with something to make all that hard work worth it. There are different types of titrations- I'm just going to start off with acid/base ones because we've been doing acid/base titrations in class.
What you'll need: a pipette (a reasonably large one that can hold 20-25mL, not one of those puny ones), a burette (kind of like a long plastic pipe with measurements and a little tap thing on the end so you can control how much liquid comes out), some conical flasks, a retort stand and burette holder. You'll probably want one or two small beakers so that you can pour stuff into there before transferring it to the burette or conical flask. Oh, and you'll also need some indicator for acid/base titrations. The type of indicator depends on what you're titrating- more on that later.
I really should draw a picture of something of how to set it up. Better yet, I could take a photo so that you can see all the equipment properly. It would probably help if I could be bothered to sync my phone up to my computer though. Ah well.
Anyway... basically what you do is first you rinse the pipette with whatever you're going to put into the conical flasks, the burette with whatever you're going to put in the burette, and the conical flasks with distilled water. Also you should rinse the little beakers with whatever you're planning to put in there. (I'll explain the reasons behind all the rinsing later.) Then you use the pipette to put a certain amount of one solution into the conical flask, and a small funnel to put the other solution into the burette (you don't have to fill all the way to the 0mL mark, but you can't go over). Write down the initial reading. Put a few drops of indicator into the conical flask.
Now you're ready for your rough titration. Turn on the tap of the burette and swirl the flask around. Occasionally, stop pouring stuff in and stop swirling the flask to see if there's a permanent colour change throughout the whole liquid. Stop titrating when you get a permanent change. Write down the reading on the burette and work out how much of the solution was consumed. Now, do it again, except stop titrating a few mL before you use up the amount that you used before (e.g. if you needed 20mL last time, stop titrating once you've used up 17 or 18mL). Now go more slowly, drop by drop, until you work out the exact drop needed to get a permanent colour change. Do this a few times. When you have more or less the same amount consumed for multiple titrations, choose this amount for your calculations.
Now I've explained what a titration is, I'm going to explain the finer points in a bit more detail!
Rinsing
What do you rinse with what, and why? Here's a guide:
When preparing a solution
- Before making a solution up to the mark, rinse everything with distilled water. The petri dish should be dried before weighing so that you don't have water stuffing up your calculations, but otherwise it doesn't matter so much for everything else as you're going to be dissolving the solid and diluting the solution anyway.
- When you're storing the solution, you'll first have to rinse the storage bottle a couple of times with distilled water to get rid of any other contaminants already in the bottle before rinsing with a little bit of the solution. Rinsing with the solution gets rid of the last little bits of distilled water and ensures that the concentration stays more or less the same. After all, you wouldn't want to do all that hard precise work and then have it all crushed by something stupid like not rinsing the storage bottle correctly, would you?
When doing a titration
- The pipette and burette need to be rinsed with the solutions that are about to go in them so the concentration stays constant and thus allows you to calculate the number of moles of each substance in whatever amount of solution that you end up using. Ditto with the little beakers if you're using them to store solutions before putting them in the pipette or burette. (Make sure you know which beaker's which!)
- The conical flasks need to be rinsed with distilled water to keep the number of moles of the substance constant. If you rinse with solution, you increase the number of moles of the substance in the conical flask, which will stuff up your calculations.
Indicator Choice
Okay, firstly I have to talk about the "end point" and "equivalence point" of a titration.
The "end point" is the point at which you stop titrating because of a colour change, and the "equivalence point" is the point where the reaction has actually stopped. Naturally, you want to choose an indicator that will change colour close to the equivalence point.
For example, let's look at the reaction between NaOH and HCl. This reaction is complete when the pH is around about 7. One indicator that you might want to look at is phenolphthalein, an indicator that is colourless for low pH and pink at high pH. The colour change occurs at around about pH 8, which is relatively close to pH 7. You might ask why not use an indicator that changes colour at pH 7, but the thing is, with strong acids and bases, one small drop can cause a massive change in pH when you're close to the equivalence point, so it's generally better to have an indicator that changes slightly early. (I think.)
There's different kinds of indicators which are useful for different titrations but you have to pick your indicator carefully, otherwise you'll stop titrating too early or too late and your calculations will be stuffed up. Don't get too hung up on this, though, as there are lots of times where several different indicators might be appropriate. For example, I think that it's also acceptable to use methyl orange for the above experiment, which changes colour at around pH 4.
And that's all for now on titrations! I have a practical test on titrations when school starts again... argh
Acids and Bases part 3
Yes, we're back to good ol' acids and bases. A lot of it continues from Year 11, but there's some new bits to learn too.
Part 1: http://year11misadventures.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/acids-and-bases-part-1.html
Part 2: http://year11misadventures.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/acids-and-bases-part-2.html
Reactions, Equations and Stoichiometry
The main points that I need to go through here are writing equations and stuff for neutralisation and the hydrolysis of salts of weak acids and bases, and calculating pH.
Neutralisation equations can be found in part 1, and pH can be found in part 2.
It says here that you also need to be able to calculate the pH of the resulting solution when strong acid-base solutions are mixed. I think in this case it means those limiting reagent questions where you have a certain quantity of an acid mixing with a certain quantity of a base, and you have to work out whether the acid or the base is in excess. Then you have to work out how many H+ or OH- ions you have in excess and then use this to work out the hydrogen ion concentration of the solution, and finally the pH.
Whew. That now leaves us with writing equations for the hydrolysis of salts of weak acids and bases!
In part 1 I mentioned conjugate acids and bases. What I didn't mention, though, is that the strength of the conjugate acid/base depends on the strength of the acid or base that formed it. Strong acids tend to produce weaker bases while weaker acids tend to produce stronger bases. For example, HCl is a strong acid, so its conjugate base, Cl-, is a weak base. Meanwhile, CH3COOH is a weak acid, while CH3COO- is a relatively strong base.
Note that I said a relatively strong base. While CH3COO- is a stronger base than Cl-, it comes nowhere close to NaOH.
The opposite holds true for bases too- strong bases tend to have weaker conjugate acids while weak bases tend to have stronger conjugate acids.
Note that really strong bases tend to also produce bases as conjugate "acids," and really strong acids produce acids as conjugate "bases." For example, O2- is such a strong base that OH- is also a base, and H2SO4 is such a strong acid that HSO4- is also an acid.
Anyway, my point being was that, for a salt to hydrolyse with water, the salt must contain an ion that is a strong enough acid or base. Cl- won't hydrolyse as, being the conjugate base of a strong acid, it simply isn't a strong enough base. CH3COO-, will, however, hydrolyse. The whole conjugate acid/base thing is just one way that might help you decide whether something is strong enough to hydrolyse with water or not.
So, what exactly is hydrolysis? Well, it's basically an acid-base reaction with water. For example, our good old ethanoate/acetate ion can serve as a base in a reaction with water to produce acetic acid and hydroxide ions:
Part 1: http://year11misadventures.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/acids-and-bases-part-1.html
Part 2: http://year11misadventures.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/acids-and-bases-part-2.html
Reactions, Equations and Stoichiometry
The main points that I need to go through here are writing equations and stuff for neutralisation and the hydrolysis of salts of weak acids and bases, and calculating pH.
Neutralisation equations can be found in part 1, and pH can be found in part 2.
It says here that you also need to be able to calculate the pH of the resulting solution when strong acid-base solutions are mixed. I think in this case it means those limiting reagent questions where you have a certain quantity of an acid mixing with a certain quantity of a base, and you have to work out whether the acid or the base is in excess. Then you have to work out how many H+ or OH- ions you have in excess and then use this to work out the hydrogen ion concentration of the solution, and finally the pH.
Whew. That now leaves us with writing equations for the hydrolysis of salts of weak acids and bases!
In part 1 I mentioned conjugate acids and bases. What I didn't mention, though, is that the strength of the conjugate acid/base depends on the strength of the acid or base that formed it. Strong acids tend to produce weaker bases while weaker acids tend to produce stronger bases. For example, HCl is a strong acid, so its conjugate base, Cl-, is a weak base. Meanwhile, CH3COOH is a weak acid, while CH3COO- is a relatively strong base.
Note that I said a relatively strong base. While CH3COO- is a stronger base than Cl-, it comes nowhere close to NaOH.
The opposite holds true for bases too- strong bases tend to have weaker conjugate acids while weak bases tend to have stronger conjugate acids.
Note that really strong bases tend to also produce bases as conjugate "acids," and really strong acids produce acids as conjugate "bases." For example, O2- is such a strong base that OH- is also a base, and H2SO4 is such a strong acid that HSO4- is also an acid.
Anyway, my point being was that, for a salt to hydrolyse with water, the salt must contain an ion that is a strong enough acid or base. Cl- won't hydrolyse as, being the conjugate base of a strong acid, it simply isn't a strong enough base. CH3COO-, will, however, hydrolyse. The whole conjugate acid/base thing is just one way that might help you decide whether something is strong enough to hydrolyse with water or not.
So, what exactly is hydrolysis? Well, it's basically an acid-base reaction with water. For example, our good old ethanoate/acetate ion can serve as a base in a reaction with water to produce acetic acid and hydroxide ions:
CH3COO-
(aq) + H2O (l) ßà CH3COOH (aq)
+ OH- (aq)
Similarly, the ammonia ion, being the conjugate acid of a weak base, can undergo hydrolysis with water to produce ammonia and hydronium ions:
NH4+ (aq) + H2O (l) ßà NH3 (aq) + H3O+
(aq)
To figure out whether a salt is acidic or basic, you first have to work out whether either of its ions will undergo hydrolysis with water. In NaCl, neither Na+ nor Cl- undergoes hydrolysis, so NaCl is a neutral salt. In NH4Cl, however, the ammonia ion does undergo hydrolysis to produce hydronium ions, as in the above equation, so ammonium chloride is an acidic salt. Similarly, salts with one ion that hydrolyses to produce hydroxide ions are basic salts.
Now, what happens when you get something like NH4CH3COO which has one ion that will hydrolyse to produce hydronium ions and another that will hydrolyse to produce hydroxide ions? I don't know. That's why I'm asking you. I have a hunch that it probably has to do with the extent that the two ions will hydrolyse with water, and the one that hydrolyses the most is the one that will determine whether the ammonium acetate is acidic or basic.
One person on Yahoo Answers says that it's neutral as both hydrolysis reactions have the same equilibrium constant and thus equal amounts of hydronium ions and hydroxide ions will be produced. I just need to find stuff to back that up now.
This other page just gives the vague "aqueous solutions can be acidic, basic or neutral."
I could search up a bit more but I can't be bothered right now because I'm lazy like that. Onto the next part...
The Next Part
There's no sub-heading on my course outline that I can name this section after, damnit!
Anyway. Some of the stuff here is the basic stuff in parts 1 and 2, such as the Arrhenius and Bronsted-Lowry models which I outlined in part 1. And then there's also the self-ionisation of water, which I should've explained in one of my previous sections, but I didn't, so here's a brief explanation.
Basically, water is amazing and can be an acid and a base. (Well, actually, the correct word is "amphoteric," but meh.) Water is also an electrolyte- i.e. it can split up into ions that carry an electrical charge which is why you shouldn't drop your hairdryer into a bathtub. I think that the way that it does this is mainly through self-ionisation, which is where some water molecules act as acids while others work as bases and then they react and then they all live happily ever after. (Not really. The reaction doesn't exactly go to completion. Probably a good thing too.)
H2O
(l) + H2O (l) ßà H3O+ (aq)
+ OH- (aq)
In Year 12
we also take this one step further. Just like other equilibrium equations, this equation also has an equilibrium constant. At 25 degrees Celsius, this equilibrium constant is 1 x 10^(-14) (i.e. very little of the water becomes ions). However, this equilibrium constant can change with temperature.There's a little table on Chem Guide that displays the water constant at 0 degrees, 10 degrees and so on, along with corresponding pH changes.
Wait, what's that? you may ask. The pH of water changes with temperature? Sure does. If the equilibrium constant is higher, it means that more hydronium (and hydroxide) ions are being produced. This then results in a change in pH. From the table on Chem Guide, we can see that the pH seems to decrease with temperature.
One important thing to remember is that, in fact, pH does not necessarily determine acidity: it's more about the proportion of hydrogen ions in comparison to hydroxide ions. If the concentration of hydrogen ions is equal to the concentration of hydroxide ions, then water is neutral, regardless of pH. pH 7 is only neutral at 25 degrees Celsius.
Hmm... what else... Buffer solutions! Back in my post on equilibrium, I said that I had no idea what a buffer solution was. Well, now I do, so now I can explain!
Buffer solutions basically make use of solutions at equilibrium and Le Châtelier's principle in order to resist changes in pH. Adding H+ ions will shift equilibrium position to cause one reaction to speed up to partially counteract this change, and adding OH- ions will shift equilibrium position in the opposite direction to speed up the other reaction to partially counteract that change. Because the equilibrium position can shift positions like this in order to counteract changes, the H+ ion concentration doesn't change a lot and thus the pH doesn't change a lot either. Buffer solutions, however, do have a maximum limit of how much they can hold, so chucking 100L of 12 mol/L hydrochloric acid in one will still reduce the pH (unless it is a seriously strong buffer solution).
So, how do you go about making a buffer solution? Well, you simply add roughly equal amounts of a weak acid or base and a solution containing its conjugate base or conjugate acid. For example, you could form a buffer solution by mixing together acetic acid and a solution of sodium acetate:
CH3COO- (aq) + H2O (l) ßà CH3COOH (aq) + OH- (aq)
In this equilibrium solution, when OH- is added, the reverse reaction speeds up to partially counteract the increase in OH-, partially restoring the pH. When H+ is added, it reacts with OH- to form water, reducing the concentration of OH- ions and causing the forward reaction to speed up to reverse that change. Thus, pH is mainly kept the same. Buffer solutions reach their maximum capacity when one or more of the reactants are fully consumed.
Some other factors that affect the capacity of buffer solutions are the relative concentrations of the acid and conjugate base, or the base and conjugate acid. Having roughly equal amounts of the two is the best way to go. Also, higher concentrations of the substances is best for absorbing more hydronium or hydroxide ions.
And that's the main stuff on Acids and Bases! Next up is titrations. Argh. I hate titration labs. Actually I hate the theory part too but at least it's not as annoying as the labs...
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